ADAMS — Lee D. Berry's eyes scanned the site of his family's Route 11 sawmill Wednesday, watching the intermittent rain dampen rubble still left behind from a fire last month.

"I was tempted to say, 'I'm not going to do this anymore,'" he said. "But my brother, Gary, and my nephew, Jeremy, wanted to continue on with this bedding and they didn't want to do it without the old dog."

Mr. Berry's decision was not made in haste.

"It's absolutely devastating, what happened to us," he said, estimating Berry Bros. Lumber Co.'s losses at more than $1 million. "The morning after the fire — we're people that have humor. That day, there was none."

Still today, the owner is overwhelmed by thoughts of friends like Bob, Sally and Scott Smith who came from Bob's Auto Supply to help their longtime customer sift through the ashes after the June 18 fire.

They found little to recover.

The Berrys have opted not to wait for the insurance company to compensate them for their loss in the hopes of keeping their customer base intact.

Since halting their century-old lumber production business last November, Mr. Berry said the company was "on an upswing" by selling animal bedding composed of discarded softwood slabs and cardboard.

"I think most people who were getting our product thought it was a superior product," he said.

A used Bandit Beast grinder, weighing more than 35,000 pounds, is on its way from Georgia this week to replace a smaller grinder and a pulverizer, called a hog, destroyed in the blaze.

The shredding and mixing device will be housed in the company's former lumber storage shed, a 3,000-square-foot area that got a new concrete floor Wednesday.

"I intend to be making dust of some sort no later than Tuesday," Mr. Berry said.

Berry Bros. has even more in store.

The company soon will have a prefabricated 3,360-square-foot building for both storage and a metal fabrication shop that takes repair jobs from local farmers. While bedding is the company's primary focus, Mr. Berry said the repairs will be about 15 percent of the overall business.

The new grinder, Mr. Berry said, should be able to grind and pulverize in one pass, which will allow the company to create bigger loads faster. The machine also is portable, the co-owner said.

That has Mr. Berry dreaming big.

"Without a doubt, we're going to get into the wholesale market" where customers can buy bedding by the tractor-trailer load, he said.

Berry Bros. expects to employ four or five people when the company restarts next week.